


But I Am A Blasted Tree

by bravelikealady



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Canon Continuation, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Near Future, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5121545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelikealady/pseuds/bravelikealady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has quieted so many, but never silenced them. Edith spends the five years after they found her (mute, soaked in clay and blood) unable to ignore her gifts- those gifts- and trapped in a shell of herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I Am A Blasted Tree

 

 

ONE

Two days after the ordeal she forces her hand to swoop and swish each letter of the story, recount the loss and the lies and the breathing house, as she sits by Dr. Alan McMichael’s side, looking up from the still drying ink on the page to check for life, only to return to the pain of forcing her hand to go on and on, rather than watch him turn paler still. "I must have it all down, I must," she whispers, writing until she shakes, slapping tea out of the hand of the nurse who only means to help. The breaking glass is nothing to her. The nurse's shock wounds; She moves on. Edith cries between Alan’s struggled breaths. She prays for him. She whispers regrets to her father. Tracing the scar forming on her cheek, Edith reminds herself that she is a murderer now. Her mother’s voice echoes, _When the time comes beware of Crimson Peak…_

 _It is too late for that, Mother._ She wonders how the spirit world names things, how it hands down its warnings. She wonders if any yielding prophecy, any whispering shadow would have helped her to save Thomas, would have saved Thomas before he and Lucille found her at all.

Alan places his hand on her shoulder and rouses her from the slumber entered upon the makeshift desk, gives her his warm smile, unfailingly sincere, and she is wiping away the ink stains she knows must be there as she smiles back, catching comfort in his snow-sky eyes. As a small laugh leaves her body, Edith begins to chastise him for standing so soon but stops; She notices how pink the undertone of his skin has become, and how bright the sunlight through the window-

The gasp rouses her from the dream- the lie- and drags her back into reality. Outside the small window the world is rain, no solitary ray in sight. Edith turns to her right, to see what her heart, her mind, have already shown. Alan is gone. Before she fetches a nurse, she kneels by his bedside and rests her head on his chest, hoping she is wrong… no _thrum thrum thrum_ comes, only damp, only cold. She places a kiss on his forehead, still dewy from the touch of fever wrung death… _he has only just slipped away… my eyes closed for a second…_ As she clutches her shawl, pulls it tighter around her ever weakening frame, and calls down the long hall for a nurse it comes to pass that her dream could have been a fantasy... or it could have been a farewell. She has no way of knowing.

(Edith knows, however. Alan gave her no goodbye… only gave his life to save her…)

The nurse tells her they must take the body, tells her she must leave the room. She writes on. The doctor who could not save her own sweet doctor- _he was mine, I knew, but never knew_ \- tells her the same. When he tries to comfort her with touch she screams. He, too, leaves her. She is trying to find the words describe the Thomas Sharpe that came to her when Lucille, his sister, was ready to end Edith’s life... trying to find a way to write _The End_ when she realizes the room is now empty. Alan- the body- is gone.

Edith soon abandons words. _They mean nothing. They are nothing._ She remembers the pen her father gave her, where it landed. She remembers her father, his fate. The book stays behind as Edith shuts the door on the last room she and Alan would ever share in any capacity. Any potential echo of her footsteps is muffled with care as she makes her way down the hallway and out into the world, careful not to receive any notice.  
  
She knows she did not love Alan and that she was never expected to.

It stings just the same.

Her stomach twists. She does not know how she keeps walking. But she does.  



End file.
